--------------------------------------------------------------------------------HARARE
- Zimbabwe's central bank said on Sunday it has fined three localcommercial
banks Z$11m ($198 900) for allegedly buying scarce foreigncurrency on the
black market.Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe spokesman Ignatius Mabasa confirmed a
story in thestate-owned Sunday Mail newspaper that the three banks had
recently beencaught violating rules against trading on the informal parallel
market.

Mabasa said the banks had been penalised on 11 counts, with each
countattracting a fine of Z$1m. But he declined to give further
details.

A severe foreign currency shortage has forced many traders to
buy the fewdollars available at an informal parallel market rate of 350
Zimbabwedollars per US dollar against the formal rate of
55:1.

President Robert Mugabe's government has held the Zimbabwe dollar
at 55 tothe US dollar since November 2000, arguing that a devaluation will
not helpcorrect the country's economic woes.

Zimbabwe is struggling
with its worst economic crisis since the southernAfrican country gained
independence from Britain in 1980, which many blameon mismanagement by
Mugabe's government.

Foreign investment and international aid has all but
dried up in the pasttwo years as Mugabe has pressed ahead with a
controversial programme toseize white-owned farm land for black
resettlement.

Political and economic analysts say the government fears
that devaluationmay work against Mugabe by stoking inflation and angering
voters ahead ofpresidential elections due by April next year. -
Reuters.

JOHANNESBURG, 13 September (IRIN) - The National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA) said it would mobilise Zimbabweans to embark on mass action, and
would also lobby international support against the government, if it refused to
implement the NCA's proposals to guarantee free and fair presidential polls
scheduled for next year, the 'Financial Gazette' reported on
Thursday.

NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku said the implementation of
minimum requirements needed to guarantee free and fair elections was a matter of
life and death for the NCA and that the civic group would not back down. "We
won't give up. We will die on that one," he was quoted as saying. Madhuka said
the NCA would present two options to the government.

"The first option
will be for the government to adopt and enact our draft constitution which we
will present to them by December. The draft constitution has permanent
mechanisms to guarantee free and fair elections. If for some reason the
government decides to postpone the issue of the constitution until after the
presidential elections, then it would have to implement the minimum requirements
that we have suggested for the holding of free and fair elections. That will be
a fair compromise and we will agree to that," he told the 'Financial
Gazette'.

Madhuka added that if the government did not adopt the NCA
constitution, the organisation wanted an independent electoral commission to run
the elections. He said that the NCA wanted the voters roll to be updated and
verified well in advance of the elections and for equal air time and space to be
given to the opposition in the public media. "It's either that the government
enacts the new constitution or effects these minimum requirements or we will
take to the streets," Madhuku said.

He said the NCA would also lobby the
United Nations, the Commonwealth, the European Union and the Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC) to apply pressure on the government to ensure the
implementation of the minimum conditions. The NCA wanted to make representations
on these issues to the SADC leaders from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Malawi
and Mozambique who met in Harare on the land crisis this week, but was excluded
from civic groups which met the leaders, the report said.

NAIROBI, 13 September (IRIN) -
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) were engaged in secret talks to find a common plan to steer the
country away from the current crisis over land, the economy and political
violence, the 'Financial Gazette' reported on Thursday.

The report quoted
sources as saying that the talks were still at a "low level" and had not
involved direct contact between the two leaders of the respective parties. The
sources said dialogue between ZANU-PF and the MDC would focus on how to end
Zimbabwe's isolation by the international community and on how to rebuild
confidence in the country by resolving contentious national issues such as land
redistribution, unemployment and the economic decline.

They said the
talks would ultimately lead to discussions over the possibility of the formation
of a government of national unity, but that the issue was not the focus of talks
so far. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was quoted as saying that he would not deny
or confirm that his party was involved in low-level talks with ZANU PF. "I
cannot deny or confirm that, but low-level contact is not talks," he said.

JOHANNESBURG, 13 September (IRIN) - The Media Institute of Southern
Africa (Misa) this week said that the Zimbabwean government should invite media
practitioners and other civic stakeholders to make recommendations on the
Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Bill to ensure that it did not
serve the interests of the executive arm of government only.

Rashweat
Mukundu, an officer with Misa-Zimbabwe, said in a MISA alert that his
organisation had submitted recommendations to the department of information and
publicity in the president's office in the absence of an official invitation.
But Misa-Zimbabwe would still want the public to contribute to the Bill before
it was tabled in parliament, he said.

At the opening of parliament last
month, President Robert Mugabe said that the Bill should improve information
availability to the public by making "its release a mandatory requirement in
situations of demonstrable public interest". "The Bill also seeks to improve the
quality of information which is available to every citizen by insisting on
integrity and professionalism within the media which should be able to source
information from most sectors on the strength of the proposed Bill, but without
undermining the citizen's rights to privacy, as well as other competing rights,
including those related to national security and the protection of children,"
Mugabe told parliamentarians.

Mukundu said: "We still believe there is
need for an official invitation from the government, for media practitioners,
stakeholders and the general public to make their input into the Bill. This can
be done through a process of public hearings or making available the draft Bill
to media houses, journalists' unions and civic society organisations so that
they can equally make their input before the Bill is taken to Parliament."

PRIVATE
security firms are offering Zimbabwe's wealthy whites the chance of armed
escorts and elaborate escape plans in the event of an all-out push by President
Robert Mugabe to take over the country's commercial farming.

There has been a fall in violence in rural areas since Mugabe signed an
accord with Commonwealth leaders in the Nigerian capital Abuja 10 days ago
ending farm occupations, but few in farming or business say the uneasy peace
will hold.

As the so-called war veterans refuse to leave most of the 900 farms that they
occupy, former Rhodesian special forces troops are quietly offering their
services in the event of an upsurge in violence before the elections early in
2002 which Mugabe hopes will allow him to cling to power for another four years.

"There's no way Bob can keep to the Abuja agreement and things are bound to
get worse," said one former marksman with the Rhodesian army who fought Mugabe's
guerrillas before the Lancaster House agreement that led to an independent
Zimbabwe in 1980. "You're daft if you don't have some plan for escape."

One security company offers an armoured car and troops to get a maximum of 24
clients to a secret bush airstrip and out of the country by private aircraft.

"There are 10 good men - most of them with experience of European armies -
and they have approached companies and the richer whites for business," the
former soldier said.

Other sources confirmed that former Rhodesian SAS officers were forming their
own security details. One said: "A rescue operation for wealthy whites is
feasible. The Zimbabwe army would look the other way if confronted by armed
escorts."

United Nations planners deny rumours of a plan to cope with an exodus of
Zimbabwe's 50,000 whites. It says that in any civil conflict most people would
flee to richer countries such as South Africa or Botswana, with some going to
Zambia and Mozambique.

The UN refugee agency said: "We don't differentiate between colours. But we
expect most whites would fly out."

The British defence ministry last year finalised contingency plans to rescue
25,000 passport holders, using reconnaissance units to assess border crossing
points. Other European countries have evacuation plans.

The Abuja agreement envisages the handover of an initial tranche of 2.5m
acres of white-owned land to the government, with Britain offering up to £36m in
compensation. Mugabe wants five times that.Before Abuja his farm ministry had
earmarked 95% of the 21m acres of white-owned land for seizure.

The accord was endorsed on Tuesday by regional leaders including Thabo Mbeki,
the South African president, whose government is tired of Mugabe's violent land
grabs and state-sponsored anarchy. The Zimbabwean leader was obliged to listen
to complaints that the often violent campaign to seize white-owned farms was
hurting the region's economies.

Tendai Biti, spokesman for Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, said in London yesterday that "it would be misplaced and naive to expect
Mugabe to implement anything".

Tony Blair will host informal talks with Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique,
Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania this week, at which the issue of Zimbabwe will
again be raised.

A Harare newspaper is reporting
that the head of a U.N. mission exploring the looting of natural resources in
the Democratic Republic of Congo met Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe Friday.

Egypt's U.N. Ambassador, Mahmoud Kassem, told the pro-government "Herald" his
team wants to update the information contained in a 56-page report released in
April. President Mugabe made no comments after the meeting.

The U.N. report blamed the belligerents in Congo's three-year-old war for
plundering minerals and other natural resources. It sharply criticized the
governments of Uganda and Rwanda, which have troops in Congo supporting rebel
movements.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia have also sent soldiers to Congo to support the
country's government.

There has been renewed unrest in
Zimbabwe, where the homes of farm workers have been set alight.

Africa
Correspondent Sally Sara reports, men claiming to be war veterans stormed a
white owned farm 100 kilometres south-east of the capital, Harare.

At least two people were seriously injured during the violent
confrontation. War veterans and ruling party supporters invaded the property,
forcing the farm owner to lock himself inside a secure compound surrounding his
house. The veterans burned several homes belonging to farm workers and destroyed
an office building. The unrest took place desite assurances by the Zimbabwean
government that it would put an end to the illegal occupation of white-owned
land. Last week, President Mugabe endorsed a proposal put forward by
Commonwealth leaders to ensure compensation for white farmers in exchange for a
return to law and order.